First Across!: The U.S. Navy's Transatlantic Flight of 1919

by Richard K. Smith

Book Overview

First Across is the exciting story of the first transatlantic flight. The flight, made in 1919, took a six-man crew nearly three weeks to complete. This book describes in detail the entire operation:... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0870211846
• ISBN13: 9780870211843
• Release Date: January 1973
• Publisher: US Naval Institute Press
• Length: 279 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.

Customer Reviews

entgirly satisfactory purchase

This is an excellent and very factual book of the flights of the Nancy flying boats in 1919. The author must have had access to the logs of the NC-4 to have had such detail. He also had more detail on the network of destroyers and other warships that picketed the flight for guidance and support than I have seen before in any other historical text on the subject. I am very pleased to add this to my library.

First Across, the U.S. Navy's Transatlantic Flight of 1919

Historically very complete, well researched, covers not only the factual story, but also the significance of the planning as well as the execution of the flight. Includes what went wrong as well as what went right, and explains the impact of this flight on subsequent long distance overwater commercial flying.

The U.S. Navy's Forgotten Flight of 1919

Several million people fly the Atlantic Ocean each year. Every plane that crosses does so under a system of radio communications, weather forecasting, satellite navigation, and rescue forces that is the inheritance of the first Trans-Atlantic flight, by the US Navy's NC flying boats. Today, the story of the NC Trans-Atlantic Flight Expedition and her crews has been all but lost to the dustbin of history. This review is written in hopes of more people becoming aware of such an historic milestone. Dr. Richard K. Smith, then of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum wrote the best account of this event.In May of 1919, the US Navy's NC-4 and her crew of six accomplished the first successful Trans-Atlantic flight. It took from May 8 until May 27 to accomplish, some three weeks. Humans had only taken wing, in airplanes, less than twenty years before. A full eight years would pass before Lindbergh made the first solo non-stop.Four large Navy-Curtiss (NC) flying boats (which land or takeoff from water only), the NC-1, 2, 3, and 4, were designed and constructed by a joint venture of the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company and the US Navy. Due to damage from storm and fire, the NC-2 was salvaged to repair the NC-1, and the remainder became spare parts.On May 8, 1919, the NC-1, 3, and 4 took off from Naval Air Station Rockaway in Long Island, New York, with Trepassey, in Newfoundland, Canada, the intermediate stop prior to their attempt across the Atlantic. After delays due to the NC-4 having engine trouble near Cape Cod and bad weather at Trepassey, all three aircraft departed on the long flight across on Friday evening, May 16th.In contrast to the comfort of today, these aircraft flew at a maximum of 90 mph, with the crews exposed to the elements in open cockpits. The part-way stop for fuel, in the Azores, would take more than seventeen hours to reach, with an elapsed flying time for the entire Atlantic crossing of more than twenty-six hours!Because of engine trouble and inclement weather, two of the aircraft, the NC-1 and 3, landed near the Azores, and were not able to take off again due to a high sea state, with waves cresting above twenty feet. All hands survived from both aircraft, with the NC-3 being sailed and taxied backwards some 250 miles to the Azores, a formidable adventure in its' own right. The NC-1 was lost at sea, her crew rescued by the Greek freighter Ionia.The NC-4, after what seemed like impossible delays in weather, engine repairs, and other problems, made Lisbon, Portugal on May 27, 1919, being the first aircraft to cross the Atlantic.The NC-4 was the first in 1919, and for always. Her place in history and the significance of her flight have long been diminished by the public's love of heroics. The NC crews were quickly forgotten as America looked to peace and prosperity after the war. This was best demonstrated by the Congress, which took more than 10 years to